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Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) – Aerial footage shows sun rising over Aleppo citadel as smoke billows in Syria’s second city after a lightning offensive by rebels against government forces.

Binnish (Syria) (AFP) – “When I saw the flowers sprouting, my joy was immense,” says Syrian farmer Osama Sallat who owns a land in Binnish in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province where farmers pick saffron flowers. Sallat hopes that this new “promising agricultural venture” will improve the income of locals in the rebel-held area as its harvest season has begun.

Tbilisi (AFP) – Georgia’s pro-Western president Salome Zurabishvili expresses solidarity with a “resistance movement” that is seeing thousands rally against the government’s decision to delay EU membership talks amid a post-election crisis.

Melbourne (AFP) – Australians give their thoughts on new legislation to ban under 16s from social media after the bill passed through parliament with bipartisan support. However, there remains uncertainty over how the law will be implemented and enforced. “I think it’s good that the government’s on this ban,” 19-year-old Arthur McCormack tells AFP, “but in terms of enforcement, I’m not sure how it will be carried out.”

Wicklow (Ireland) (AFP) – Ireland goes to the polls on Friday with the incumbent coalition parties neck-and-neck with opposition Sinn Fein, after a campaign marked by rancour over housing and cost-of-living crises. IMAGES

Tyre (Lebanon) (AFP) – As a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah largely held for a second day, Dunia Najdeh, like many residents of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, returned to check on her home. The truce ended a war that began a day after Hamas’s unprecedented and deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Canberra (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says a landmark law that bans under-16s from social media will result in “less harm” for children. The crackdown on sites like Facebook, Instagram and X, which was approved by parliament late Thursday, will lead to “better outcomes and less harm for young Australians”, he tells reporters.

Polonnaruwa (Sri Lanka) (AFP) – Floods in central Sri Lanka’s Polunnaruwa district has forced some 335,155 people to seek temporary shelter in public buildings after their homes were flooded, according to Colombo’s Disaster Management Centre (DMC). Rescuers recovered the bodies of six children, taking the number of those killed in the torrential rains to 12, as a powerful but slow-moving storm heads towards India.

Beijing (AFP) – Beijing says that increased tariffs on China threatened by US President-elect Donald Trump due to its alleged role in fuelling the US fentanyl crisis “will not solve the United States’ own problems.”

Astana (Kazakhstan) (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin calls US President-elect Donald Trump an “intelligent person” who is capable of solving problems, as tensions between the West and Moscow escalate ahead of the Republican taking office. “As far as I imagine the re-elected president, he is actually an intelligent person, already quite experienced. I think he will find a solution,” Putin says of Trump while on a visit to Kazakhstan, without specifying what “solution” he was referring to.

Gothenburg (Sweden) (AFP) – In the gang war that is shaking Sweden, young people are being recruited as hitmen via encrypted messaging, a method used by criminal organisations to evade the police. Sweden has struggled to rein in a surge in gang shootings and bombings across the country in recent years, linked to score-settling and battles to control the drug market. The number of murder-related cases in Sweden where a suspect is under the age of 15 rose from 31 in the first eight months of 2023 to 102 in the same period this year, according to the Prosecution Authority.

Lara (Australia) (AFP) – Australian lawmakers have passed landmark rules to ban under 16s from social media, approving one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on popular sites like Facebook, Instagram and X. The legislation ordering social media firms to take “reasonable steps” to prevent young teens from having accounts was passed in the Senate with 34 votes in favour and 19 against. “It’ll be a weird feeling to not have it,” says 12-year-old Angus Lydom. However, with no details on how the rules will be enforced, the pre-teen seems unphased, “I’ll find a way, and so will all my other friends,” he tells AFP. of social media use in Australia